


time to go down in flames (and I’m taking you closer to the edge)

by Mija



Category: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Gen, Movie: Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, Mustafar, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-21
Updated: 2017-08-21
Packaged: 2018-12-18 03:46:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11866014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mija/pseuds/Mija
Summary: Obi-Wan has always known that it would end like this.





	time to go down in flames (and I’m taking you closer to the edge)

**Author's Note:**

> If you notice any language mistakes, please let me know.
> 
> See [ here ](https://www.fanfiktion.de/s/5823696d0003e943f930733/1/Zeit-in-Flammen-aufzugehen) for the German version.

Whenever Obi-Wan looks at Anakin, the first thing he sees is the fire.

Anakin never leaves any doubt about the fact that he likes water more than he likes fire, a mindset that can probably be excused if you grow up on a desert planet. Water, he explains to Obi-Wan, is considered a blessing on Tatooine, a treasured resource and a bearer of hope; and when Obi-Wan recalls the short period of time he spent on that bleak bit of nothingness, he understands why.

“We used to look up at the sky and hope that it would rain,” Anakin tells him, his eyes assuming the kind of absentminded expression Obi-Wan only notices on him when his young apprentice thinks of a life left behind long ago. “But of course it never did. All we got were sandstorms. Sand everywhere, until you’d get the feeling you’d choke on it.”

Obi-Wan nods. Right now, he is still able to wholeheartedly confirm that he doesn’t like sand, either; he still lingers in blissful ignorance and doesn’t know that he will spend twenty years of his life on Tatooine, that useless ball of dust, that planet so devastating in its plainness.

Because who could have anticipated what will become of the cheery, untameable boy who is pacing in front of Obi-Wan as is speaking because he can’t stand sitting still for too long? Obi-Wan is watching his padawan, nods and listens and wonders whether Anakin secretly only thinks of fire as so dangerous because he can feel it inside himself.

Anakin’s eyes have the colour of the ocean, but another element is reflected in them: inextinguishable flames, a controlled inferno, barely visible yet, not yet developed far enough to be dangerous – but always there. Unmistakably.

Sometimes, when Anakin once again tries to hide a split lip from him or brings him to the verge of despair with his rebellious attitude, Obi-Wan can’t help but wonder how long it will be before his protégé will burn his fingers on his own fire.

 ~°~

In a not too remote future, Obi-Wan will have to face another question, the treacherous, central question of what he could have done differently, done _better_. Should he have showed more affection toward the bright-minded child in an effort to choke off the first flare-up of fire right away? Or quite the opposite – should he have been a stricter mentor to the rebellious teenager, should have showed him his weaknesses of character and their consequences more clearly? Should he just have listened better to the inwardly torn young man? Perhaps nothing of it would have slowed down Anakin’s fall, perhaps the tiniest gesture or the most fleeting smile would have changed worlds.

_Perhaps_ is the word that makes galaxies break apart.

 ~°~

 “What are you thinking about, Master?”

Obi-Wan startles. He felt Anakin’s arrival, of course, but he hasn’t expected to be interrupted in his meditations quite that unceremoniously. _How many times have I told him ...?_

He briefly considers choosing the easy way out and resorting to an excuse. He could claim to have thought about the war or the latest political developments across the Galaxy, and that wouldn’t even be a lie, just an alternative approach toward the truth. A backdoor, one could say. The war is omnipresent, _of course_ the always vigilant warrior inside him keeps thinking about it, otherwise he wouldn’t have survived that long. _Always vigilant_ ... Alert to attacks, intrigues and a former padawan who is standing in front of him with a questioning look on his face.

Obi-Wan hesitates for a treacherous split second before he decides to go for nothing but the truth. After all, he is supposed to be a role model to Anakin when it comes to things like this, and apart from that he can’t fully suppress the faint hope that Anakin will understand the hint.

“I merely remembered a legend from an extinct culture. Its people firmly believed that you don’t join the Force after your death, but either be admitted to heaven or punished in hell. They imagined the realm they called _hell_ as a place full of demons and endless suffering, as an inferno.”

It always comes down to fire, in the end. The link can’t be missed, and only Anakin, who has always been more of a man for the practical aspects of life rather than somebody who enjoys pondering on half-forgotten legends, manages to ignore the looming shadow of foreboding.

“Sounds like a mixture of Mustafar and Haariden, with just a touch of Tatooine,” he says carelessly, and before Obi-Wan can decide whether to despair in the face of his friend’s resistance towards learning or to shrug off his concerns as paranoia, the conversation turns towards more tangible topics. War and droids and clones and strategies ... and still, above all of it, the heat of a never dying blaze.

Anakin probably wouldn’t have reacted so lightly if he had known how much the vision of a fiery inferno reminds Obi-Wan of him.

 ~°~

Obi-Wan never wanted a brother. Qui-Gon’s training was beyond any doubt, but it didn’t prepare him for the battles he has to fight with his padawan: with that very special padawan who definitely doesn’t fit into the norm; who takes no stock in _no attachments, serenity_ and _controlled distance_ , who creeps up next to him in his bed the first few nights and demands to hear stories because his longing for his mother is too great to grant him the mercy of sleep; who regularly brings Obi-Wan to the verge of despair with his desire for freedom, who cannot _not_ love ... His training didn’t prepare him for the fact that his only grudgingly accepted padawan manages to acquire a concealed, but all the more deeply rooted spot within his heart over the years, that he becomes a friend instead of merely an apprentice and a brother instead of a friend.

And nothing prepared him for the last battle.

When he finds out that Anakin went to Mustafar of all places, he feels the shadow of premonition manifest itself into a sneering monstrosity. It is becoming more powerful by the second, and when Obi-Wan looks into Anakin’s unfamiliar eyes he knows that it will end here. Between sparks and smoke, shattered dreams and the fragments of a reality kicked into the dirt.

Maybe, he thinks wearily while he activates his lightsabre and his subconscious switches into battle mode – _dodge and parry and strike_ –, maybe he should have told Anakin about paradise and hell right away, on their very first day together. Maybe Anakin would have understood before it was too late.

 ~°~

_“It’s over, Anakin, I have the high ground!”_

Poor fool. Even now he is still hoping, clinging to the illusion that everything could be alright. It’s not entirely too late yet. If Anakin made the reasonable decision now, if he deactivated his lightsabre, perhaps there would be a salvation for him, for both of them. Some magic trick to erase the past and change the future. Anything but the darkness that arises from the flames behind them and is only waiting to devour the two of them, and the galaxy with them.

Anakin is his brother, his reckless, stubborn, powerful, misguided, _fallen_ little brother – his brother, standing in front of him with his weapon raised, waiting to kill him or to be killed himself. But nonetheless his _brother_.

_Reasonable_ was never a word that went well with this particular little brother – and Anakin, always so intent on walking the skies, jumps.

 ~°~

_“You were my brother, Anakin, I loved you!”_

Even to him, the words sound like cruel mockery, and they cut into his heart as deeply as only the truth can do it. He knows that he should go back and end it right here, right now, that he should at least grant Anakin this last mercy; and the clearer this thought becomes in his mind, the farther his steps carry him away from the shore of the lava sea. He can’t help himself; he doubts that, if he gave in now and went back, he’d ever find the strength to leave this place.

Anakin is screaming and screaming as the flames close around him, and Obi-Wan numbly reflects that maybe the Order was right when it forbid attachments – that this rule is only meant to protect them from this kind of pain. Anakin is screaming and Obi-Wan turns away and leaves, and it _hurts_ so much, and he knows that he will hear these screams in his dreams for the rest of his life, just as he will feel the pain for the rest of his life, as though he’d burnt as well, not just Anakin.

The flames devour his brother and Obi-Wan doesn’t look back. Later, in his memory, he will always turn around and wonder what would have been _if_ , but now he stares ahead blindly while the future is reduced to ashes behind him.

He has always known that it would end like this.

 ~°~

(And then Luke makes his appearance, gentle, open-hearted Luke with his marvelling eyes and a heart that is so pure, so wide open to the world. Luke who is so much like his father, driven by the same restlessness, consumed by the same longing for the stars, and yet so much more tender, so much softer, a clear ocean, not a roaring fire.

Luke is water and Anakin was fire, and even while he is trying to teach Luke that it is too late for Anakin, a tiny, well-hidden part of Obi-Wan – the friend, the brother who even in the fiery rivers of Mustafar didn’t drown completely – hopes that the water with its quiet, steady stream will manage to arrange the stones to a new riverbed.

They say that you can’t help a fallen angel back to his feet, especially when said angel burnt his wings. They also say that the good always wins in the end, and that is the hope the Galaxy draws its breath from.

Obi-Wan always knew that it would end in fire, but he always _hoped_ that the water would manage to extinguish the fire someday.)


End file.
